History column: Masconomet finally rests in peace

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Ipswich Chronicle

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Posted Jul. 6, 2014 at 9:16 PM

Posted Jul. 6, 2014 at 9:16 PM

IPSWICH

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Masconomet Quinakonant was the sagamore (chief) of the Agawam tribe of the Algonquian Native Americans when the first Puritan colonists arrived in Ipswich in 1633 and he had survived the pandemic caused by European contact, which killed 90 percent of the local native population in the early 1600s.

Masconomet ruled all the land from Cape Ann to the Merrimack River, and their population had once numbered in the tens of thousands. He sold all the tribeís land to John Winthrop Jr. and the settlers of Ipswich for the sum of £20 and a promise of protection from enemy tribes, retaining a few acres for himself.

The sagamore died on March 6, 1658 and was buried along with his gun, tomahawk and other items on Sagamore Hill, formerly in the hamlet section of Ipswich and now within the town of Hamilton ó not to be confused with "Sagamore Hill" on Argilla Road. His widow was buried alongside him.

On March 6, 1659 a young man named Robert Cross dug up the remains Masconomet and carried his skull on a pole through Ipswich streets, an act for which Cross was jailed, sent to the stocks, then returned to prison until a fine was paid. He also had to rebury the skull and bones and build a two-foot-high pile of stones over the grave. His accomplice John Andrews was instructed to help bury the remains and made a public acknowledgement of his wrongdoing.

In some Native American traditions the spirit of a person is called back to roam the Earth looking for his bones when his grave is desecrated. After the bones are found, a proper burial procedure must be performed by his people before he can rest. Two stones placed in 1910 and 1971 mark the grave, but it was not until 1993 that a ceremony with Native American rituals was conducted. After 355 years, the sagamoreís spirit was finally at peace.

To visit Masconometís final resting place, take Candlewood Road from Essex Road, and continue 1.7 miles, crossing into Hamilton on Sagamore Road. A steep paved road on the left leads past the Sagamore Hill Solar Radar Observatory to the sacred gravesite, graced with personal tokens of reverence.

Gordon Harris is chairman of the Ipswich Historical Commission. Visit their site at www.historicipswich.org